Objects in Space
by delga
Summary: Amita/Charlie. She feels as though she’s a lost memo, like the forgotten dates pencilled into the margins of his notes.


**objects in space.** (numb3rs)  
charlie/amita  
_How soon is now?_

with thanks to my beta _**tigertrapped**_. no copyright infringement intended. written for _**2020challenge**_.

--

_You shut your mouth; how dare you say I go about things the wrong way?  
I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does_

--

"It's not enough."

It's not enough, and she knows this, so why is it so hard to just turn around and walk away? It's not enough just to have half of his attention, and no more than a cursory glance at the things he works on in secret. It's not enough to be second place to the epigraphs he scrawls out onto the whiteboards, the chalkboards in the garage, the notepads he hides in the bedside table, his satchel, the folders he carries around with him all day; she feels as though she's a lost memo, like the forgotten dates pencilled into the margins of his notes, obscured by minute alterations in expressions, moments where he doubts himself, refigures the motion of his theories, his ideas, tries to test them out on paper before putting them down in deep blue ink, a permanent scar on the page.

When he is busy— when his mind is set alight by some figure or some daring weight of theory, he is completely and utterly beautiful. Face upturned to the dark blackboard, hands dusted over in white, and fingernails bright white, scratching at the surface of ever-diminishing chalk sticks, fragile, agile, tapping against the board in a constant rhythm. His face turned upwards and God is in the details, God is in the numbers, the cuneiform, and he is _beautiful_. Not God. Charlie. Charlie is beautiful.

She wakes up in the middle of the night to find his side of the bed cold and empty; she stretches her legs, rolls out of bed, walks down the stairs to find him at the dining table, papers scattered across every surface, the laptop buzzing in the corner, its sharp light filtering through the room. No lights, just the table lamp, its yellow glow intersecting, cutting through and mellowing the harsh white glare of the computer screen. And there he is, bent over the table, running the figures, the numbers, collating data, producing data, tallying, counting, reproducing – _there's not enough data, there's never enough data_ – and he is a world unto himself, with birth and death and life correlating in the chaos before him. It's like watching a computer work, the actual _insides_ of a computer, the digital proliferation of ones and zeros into workable forms, atoms firing away, forming pictures and colours, and the way he moves across the table, reading with his fingers first and then his eyes, the way his mind is always working, always frantic, it makes her so completely full and so completely empty that she is as ambivalent in herself as he is. It is not enough.

Charlie's work is his own; he no longer asks for her help, occasionally enquires what she's working on, if her day was very long. At meal times, in the evening, maybe he'll ask or maybe he'll be worrying over another problem, picking at his food, worrying away at his mind because there is not enough data, there is never enough data and she wishes he would talk to her about it. They used to talk about fractal patterns, the beauty of the mathematical in the world, physical and real, powerful and awful and now he doesn't talk, he worries; he doesn't talk, he sometimes doesn't come to eat, and yes, he is beautiful, yes, yes, yes he is so beautiful but he is devastating, too, and she's not sure that she can handle that anymore.

To him it's as though she no longer knows how to speak the language; as though she is separate from him, now, imperceptibly impure, inconsequential. He tries, she knows he does; he tries to ask questions, important ones, the right ones – and there is always a right answer, mathematicians believe in finites as well as infinities, and Charlie is an ever-fixed mark, a constant amongst variables, and she knows he wants to be right, always right, and never ever wrong – and he fumbles in the asking, forgets what he is doing, is distracted by some errant thought. He doesn't believe in her anymore. She is a Physicist, not a Mathematician; she doesn't speak the language, she's not thinking in the right way. Charlie doesn't believe in her and she feels as though he doesn't trust her with the fragility of his thoughts, potent as they are. He tries, he does try, they are always trying, but it is not enough.

One night she wakes up to find him in the garage, pacing up and down in front of his boards, phone pressed tightly to his ear and— "No, no, it doesn't… I mean, how do you even begin to quantify that, the data is, it's not even, I mean, it's not enough. The data isn't enough and if it was enough, well, what does that say? These figures, they aren't adding up, and they're not—what?" He laughs, he laughs a little, and he's so tired, she thinks; he laughs a little, he calms down, and he perches on a stool. "No, I'm fine. I am, I swear. I'm just— I'm so close, Susan, I know it—"

She goes to work, she goes to class, she doesn't wonder what Charlie finds so amusing in midnight telephone conversations to people half way across the world. She meets Larry for lunch, maybe talks to Don for a little while when he comes to find his brother. She immerses herself in marking midterms and papers on vector analysis, game theory, attends lectures and seminars on the philosophy of Physics and learns how in the birth of a new galaxy, old suns die, let out all their life in one torrid effort to be noticed, and burn up; they burn up and die, and they disappear, only to form new life and new worlds. "Such great wonders from such great dissolution," Larry muses as they leave the hall, "How ironic it is that in a universe so vast, so infinite, to create new life and new matter, we must destroy all that we already have." He tilts his head to one side, and she is doting of him, she thinks, doting of this little man with his big ideas and even bigger heart. "Of course, it makes sense, I suppose. We are so very fond of misplacing the things we love the most. Oh, how is our young Charles, by the way?" And she thinks, maybe she'll let him see her cry, maybe she'll let him see that she's not quite strong and not quite stable; but already he's talking about cognitive mapping techniques and the latest research out of the minds of Harvard babes and she changes her mind, nods when she's supposed to, and forces quiet into her mind.

She is not a supernova. She is orbital debris, drawn to light and giant bodies, masses comprised of heat and vigorous gases, fluid motion that tears across far distant landscapes, terrifying, mystifying, and Charlie is the centre, the axis to her life; he is the centre of her universe and she doesn't know what to do to make that an enticing prospect anymore. It's just not enough, she thinks, to be a satellite, a moon that waxes and wanes according to proximity to the body that governs it. There are patterns here, beautiful patterns in the way she has to dance around Charlie's shadow and the spaces he leaves in his wake when he rushes from the table, the way she waits for him to come to bed, waits for the minutes, the hours to slowly pass her by; beautiful patterns, intricate functions and expressions, awesome in their seeming simplicity and the details they unfold— and in amongst all of this beauty, all of this wonder, it is not enough to simply _be_. Charlie is making something beautiful, forging it with his hands, his mind, building universes under the weight of his pen and around him the world is coming to a halt. It is not _enough_, she thinks, and she tests the words in her mouth, tests them on the air. "It's not enough." And then Charlie asks what's not enough, and she shakes her head, nothing. Asks what he wants for dinner. Hovers in oblivion, the galaxy spinning apart beneath her feet.

**end.**


End file.
